The present invention relates to methods, devices, systems, structures, and materials for protecting entities from physical harm, more particularly to armor protection of persons or things from injury or damage caused by explosive or ballistic events.
Thick and heavy metallic armor, such as made of steel, is capable of defeating high-velocity projectiles, but is not feasible for many applications. For instance, it may be practical to equip a 110-ton tank, but not a 30-ton truck, with thick and heavy metallic armor. The drawbacks of massive solid-metallic/all-metallic armor—e.g., increase in vehicular weight, decrease in vehicular range, decrease in vehicular speed, decrease in mean time between vehicular repairs, and decrease in vehicular lifetime—are especially manifest for applications involving smaller, lighter vehicles such as trucks, high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs, popularly referred to as HUMVEE®s), and other mobile land vehicles.
The term “metallic” as used herein broadly refers to any metal-inclusive homogeneous material, such as an elemental metal or a metal alloy. Armor systems have been considered that utilize non-metallic (e.g., polymeric or ceramic) materials that are lighter than metallic armor materials, but these armor systems can be expensive and are not entirely satisfactory in defending against high-velocity projectiles such as explosively formed projectiles (EFPs), which are designed to hurl fragments at high velocities upon detonation of an explosive. It remains desirable in the art to devise an armor system that is relatively inexpensive, that is suitable for smaller/lighter vehicles, and that more effectively protects the occupants of the vehicles from harm caused by high-velocity projectiles.